Deported cleric Abu Qatada lands in Jordan

Radical Islamic cleric Abu Qatada has been deported from Britain and is on his way to Jordan.Source: AAP

ISLAMIST cleric Abu Qatada has arrived in Jordan to face terror charges after Britain deported him, ending a decade-long legal battle to be rid of a man once dubbed Osama bin Laden's right hand in Europe.

Prime Minister David Cameron led British ministers in expressing delight at Sunday's final removal from British soil of the Palestinian-born preacher who has been in and out of British prisons since 2002 even though he has never been convicted of any crime.

Abu Qatada was handed over to Jordanian prosecutors straight after his arrival at Marka military airport in east Amman in readiness for his retrial on charges that earned him a life sentence in absentia.

"They are now interrogating him ahead of his retrial," Jordanian Information Minister Mohammad Momani told the state-run Petra news agency.

"His retrial will be conducted in line with international standards, protecting his rights and ensuring justice, fairness, credibility and transparency."

Abu Qatada's father, brothers and other family members waited outside a military courthouse near the airport for his arrival, an AFP photographer reported.

"He will appear before state security court prosectors immediately and they will read the charges," said Hussein Omari, a lawyer at the Amman-based Adaleh Centre for Human Rights Studies, which is to monitor Abu Qatada's retrial.

Abu Qatada was condemned to death in absentia in 1999 for conspiracy to carry out terror attacks, including on the American school in Amman, but the sentence was immediately commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour.

In 2000, he was sentenced in his absence to 15 years for plotting to carry out terror attacks on tourists in Jordan during millennium celebrations.

Under Jordanian law, he has the right to a retrial in his presence.

Britain was finally able to expel the 53-year-old father-of-five after the two governments last month ratified a Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, guaranteeing that evidence obtained by torture would not be used in his retrial.

"I was absolutely delighted. This is something this government said it would get done, and we have got it done," Cameron told reporters.

"It's an issue that, like the rest of the country, has made my blood boil."

Abu Qatada was taken from prison in an armoured police van to a military airfield on the outskirts of London, from which he was flown out at 0146 GMT.

Home Secretary Theresa May said his departure proved that the government's efforts to deport him had been worth the 1.7 million ($2.7 million, two million euros) legal bill and would be "welcomed by the British public."

"This dangerous man has now been removed from our shores to face the courts in his own country," she said in a statement released seconds after Abu Qatada's plane took off.

Television pictures showed Abu Qatada dressed in a white robe as he boarded the aircraft at the RAF Northolt base in west London. He had earlier left high security Belmarsh jail in southeast London in a blue armoured police van flanked by three police cars.

London had been trying to deport him since 2005 but British and European courts had blocked his expulsion on the grounds that evidence might be used against him that had been obtained by torture.

But after years of legal battles his lawyers unexpectedly said in May that he would return once the fair trial treaty was ratified by the Jordanian parliament.

Abu Qatada's wife and five children are expected to remain in Britain, where he first sought asylum in 1993.

Born Omar Mahmud Mohammed Otman in Bethlehem in the now Israeli-occupied West Bank, Abu Qatada has Jordanian nationality because the town was part of Jordan at the time of his birth.

Videotapes of his sermons were allegedly found in the Hamburg flat of 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta.

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